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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29276988">Downhill</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/play_your_tambourine/pseuds/play_your_tambourine'>play_your_tambourine</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Natasha Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 - Malloy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, F/F, I get the feeling from the tags you can tell this is marya angst, Internal Conflict, Internalized Homophobia, One Shot, Religion</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 04:08:46</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,248</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29276988</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/play_your_tambourine/pseuds/play_your_tambourine</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Marya struggles through tragedy, turmoil, and who to blame.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Marya Dmitryevna Akhrosimova/Elena "Hélène" Vasilyevna Kuragina</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Downhill</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>*This has a LOT of religion-based homophobia in it, so if that is something that triggers you, keep this in mind and stay safe/protect yourselves!*<br/>This fandom needed some Marya angst in it, so here I am. It may be weirdly written, but hopefully it works! Have a beautiful day &lt;3</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Marya did not have many friends. Not many people, anyway.  Marya spoke mostly with the concept of strength. It was the call she made in the middle of the night and nothing felt right anymore. It had been her company for When Marya was little, she found that strength was being able to beat the boys in a push up contest, or being able to help her mother carry groceries from their car into the house. Strength was always something physical and tangible. Maybe playing sports and joining the boys team, or winning a game of tag.</p><p>Strength was muscle and speed when she was a child. It was standing at her parents’ grave when she was a teenager. Standing over the casket, hours inbetween, and willing herself not to cry. Strength became hugging her relatives when they cried, and thanking people in near silence when they told her everything would be okay. Marya was strong, and she was not stupid. She knew things would not be okay. That she would not be okay. But strength had been learning to train herself into the ground and pray to a god she wasn’t sure she believed in that the physical exhaustion would be enough to keep her holding on.</p><p>And when Marya grew older-when she had graduated high school with straight As and a scholarship in her name, strength became her faith. She asked for more than she ever had in her life while kneeling on those benches: the rest of her family’s wellbeing, forgiveness from the friends she pushed to arms length, mercy from the brutality of her words. She asked every week, because Marya knew herself well. She may have been strong, but she was a stubborn woman. She begged God to forgive her for these things that would probably never change.</p><p>Things started to feel okay. Not perfect, but okay.</p><p>Okay hadn’t been in her vocabulary for years.</p><p>But there was something to be said about the diligence that came with her bustling life. A full time job, 6 course semester, D2 volleyball, and charity work with her Sunday morning services meant she had no time to fall. Things were going well. Things were going-she was doing okay, until time betrayed her. No time meant her meetings with strength in the aloneness of her bedroom had stopped; she blamed its absence for how hard she fell.</p><p>She fell for Helene Kuragin.</p><p>Helene had always been an interesting woman: an easy one to distract yourself with. Marya took time she didn’t have to pick out all of the things she didn’t like about her. It was her hair one day, the way she sat in the back of the classroom the other. Sometimes it would be her tapping her pen too loud to a rhythm Marya did not know. In some way or another Helene had been on Marya’s radar since the moment they saw each other for the first time, and at first, it was not anything fond. She was nothing more to the redheaded woman than a dangerous vehicle on a battlefield. In this case, she was a missile aiming to go straight through Marya’s heart.</p><p>It started off simple: more of a tolerance for the sake of benefit kind of thing. That is what Marya told herself. There were things that Marya was still coming to learn about Helene: the most prominent of them was that the curly-haired brunette remembered everything. She remembered conversations from weeks ago, phone numbers, classroom numbers, the works. It was useful in her life, she supposed: Helene knew every person who was introduced to her intimately, able to recall the smallest of details about their lives or interests, giving off the impression she cared, or was even fully listening as they spoke to her. At Natasha’s small dorm parties, Helene would whisper the names and majors of people as they entered so Marya at the very least would stop worrying that just because some boy played lacrosse did not mean they were out to endanger Natasha’s wellbeing. Helene did it at nearly every party they both attended, and the redhead never thought to question why Helene was the only person brave enough to touch her who didn’t fare the consequences.</p><p>Their friendship started in small steps. Maybe it was the whiskey, but the redheaded woman laughed at the delight glittering in brown eyes when she accepted a shot. Around midnight, glancing up at the stars, she remembered when Helene bumped her shoulder into Marya’s. Helene’s lips tickled her ear to form the words, “It is a shame you only like me when you’re drunk,”</p><p>Marya did not forget those words, though Marya never displayed any more kindness than she had in the past until nearly a month later. She didn’t expect Helene to notice her noticing how the color of a rich Kelly green sundress complimented everything about her. It was not how Marya expected the interaction to go, but Helene had the courage to turn and look at her. “Is there something wrong?”</p><p>And, well, Marya couldn’t exactly snap out a denial when she’d been staring this long. “You look nice today is all, Elena,” The redhead turned around before she could feel the shame of whatever Helene’s reaction was going to be.</p><p>Now Helene got to laugh. It was not mocking or embarrassed, emphasized by the bright smile she gave. “I know I do, but you don’t have to call me Elena,”</p><p>Marya strived to hear the sound again. And again. And again. The one tune she would never get sick of-a melody she remembered right before she went to bed.</p><p>Marya did not know when it fell apart. When her hatred turned to good company and the barbed insults to jest. She could not track it back if she tried. It was one of, if not the first, times she was okay not knowing the answer. She wanted to know why her parents were taken away, why her friends allowed her to pull back so hard, but she didn’t want to know why Helene caused such a fluttering feeling inside of her. She did not know why God had done this to her.</p><p>He threw this imperfection-this sin in her face just as she began to smile again. Why did he let her happiness be the reason she suffered? There were passages after passages, sermons after sermons, preachers after preachers…this was bad. She knew this was bad.</p><p>She ran through every single tragedy, every single hardship she faced with feet wearing into floorboards and blurry vision. Hours passed that felt like seconds stretched into eternity. Time, like the situation itself, was falling through her fingertips. She was losing that along with every certainty she’d ever had.</p><p>It was too dark inside her apartment. Too quiet. Had she ever liked the quiet? Or did she just convince herself she did?</p><p>Marya wondered which happened first: the sin or the tragedy. The question was paralyzing. Her feet stopped moving. Her chest stopped. Her heart felt like it did just as the clock in the other room chimed midnight. Her love was deadly. It was the worst thing she’d ever done.  </p><p>The next time she saw Helene was the trashiest frat house there was. She texted Helene to ask if she was going to attend as well, a custom she had grown into that now made her skin crawl. It was sent already, the confirmation received, and Marya forced herself to be on the way. The whole drive she prayed for the strength she used to have. The redhead promised herself with windows rolled down and bits of icey rain hitting her face that today would be the day she ripped into Helene Kuragin and set the record straight.</p><p>Then the woman said hello. “Marya, I feel like I haven’t seen you,” Marya needed to gasp for air. Helene's voice was teasing, and it almost alarmed her. She spoke with a rasped timbre that was as intoxicating as the champagne it reminded her of. It was sparkling, radiant, and bubbly, but not enough to distract her from the atrocities she was committing. “You ignoring me?” It was said in the light tone they’d recently acquired between one another, but there was something else in her voice that caused Marya to freeze up. It was the smallest semblance of pain: hurt laced through the observation. Her head tilted slightly, a small frown showing.</p><p>“Of course not,” She couldn’t. By god, she’d tried. She tried so damn hard. “I don’t mean to make you-“</p><p>“I was just a little worried,” Helene gave a half smile, hesitant and now looking for once in her life embarrassed. Fortunately, while they had little in common, resilience was something. “You’ve been much meaner to me in the past,”</p><p>“I don’t believe I have ever been mean to you,”</p><p>“The first time we met you communicated through glares,” Helene pointed out, smirking slightly. “Forgive, but never forget, Marya,” Helene tsked playfully, taking the woman’s wrist without a thought. Oh, to be that blissfully unaware.</p><p>Her head may have been clouded with too many shots-enough that even Helene cautioned her- but one thing remained crystalline: the things she was thinking when Helene smiled at her, or purred her name, were not speaking to the reassurance she was clawing for. Every thought about what that woman looked like in white were chanted over in the form of bible verses as a hole in the ground. Marya could no longer tell if it was the alcohol or the realization she had one foot stuck in the gates that made her stomach toil. They spoke for an hour without so much as leaving each other’s side, following to get drinks and greet friends of Helene’s as they arrived. Helene’s hand never left hers either as she used the other to point at Marya and smile. Marya didn’t hear the words. The yelling in her head was too loud.</p><p>Marya was only let out of Helene’s sight when there was insistence and a pinky promise she was fine. It never occurred to Marya that the girl was genuinely worried for her as she stumbled down the hall. She’d always been unshakable, study; no one ever needed to be concerned for her before. That, or they never cared enough to check if the foundation was crumbling.</p><p>Forty minutes later Marya decided things were not going to be okay. It was discovered in the form of being on her knees at the bedside of the most isolated room in the house, trying to recite a prayer with tears streaming down her face. She was barely able to get a word out through her sobs.</p><p>To see someone on their knees in a bedroom at a party was one thing, but kneeling beside a bed with no one else in it was another. “Mar…?” Her words came out slow and assured, an observation that jarred the woman begging for mercy more than she’d ever admit. Helene was met with silence. Until the prayers began again.  Helene’s steps towards were steady, trying decode the words through a blanket of emotion.</p><p>Love was a disease, an infection that tainted every part of her. It was cruel and vicious and clawing through her heart to her insides. It wasn’t kind-it couldn’t be, or it wouldn’t have poisoned her like this. Any time Helene tried to soothe her Marya either cried harder or flinched away. “Marya, dear-“ Her tears didn’t stop, if anything grew more and more hysterical. She was falling apart, and she couldn’t take it.</p><p>“N-no! It-I…” Marya couldn’t find the words. She wanted to scream. Scream at this woman who did this to her to get out. She wanted this…this devil to leave her, to grant her that peace of mind. She wanted to screech for Helene to never so much as look at her again. And yet the words died in her throat. Marya was strong, stronger than desire, but not stronger than her necessity, and she was drowning. Whether Marya wanted it or not-whether she knew it or not-Helene was going to keep her afloat or die trying. She couldn’t make Helene leave; not when her hand rested on Marya’s back hesitantly and she wondered if this was what care felt like. “This isn’t right,”</p><p>Helene craned her neck to look at her and offered a weak smile, though her touch was reassuring. “No more about that for right now,” She whispered, placing her hand on top of Marya’s and letting the redhead decide what to do with it. “C’mere,” Helene murmured after a moment, opening her arms and letting Marya crawl into them, glancing down and trying to take a composing breath. “Things are going to be okay…”</p><p>“No, I-“</p><p>“Listen, darling,” Helene was not the comforting type, or the emotional type in general, but her hands ran through Marya’s hair without hesitation. “I could throw books upon citations upon analysis at you and I will, but let’s not do that right now,” Marya didn’t have it in her to fight. “I’d rather you be safe and sober right now, yeah?” Rubbing her nose with a shaking hand, Marya nodded. “Then we can talk all you want,”</p><p>Helene didn’t expect an answer.</p><p>Marya swallowed hard. “I-“ Sapphire eyes met brown ones and Marya couldn’t help but cry. She mourned the loss of herself. She welcomed the relief. “I love you,”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Feedback is always appreciated &lt;3</p></blockquote></div></div>
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